Announced But Never Played- Page 3
Announced But Never Played
#50Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 1:24am
Kelsey Grammer was supposed to play Albin after 6 months as Georges in the La Cage revival...
My Music Classroom Giving Page: https://www.donorschoose.org/MrHMusicRoom
bobs3
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/8/12
#51Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 2:59amBlythe Danner was cast as Ouisa in SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION but a week into rehearsals she withdrew after Barbra Streisand offered her the role of Nick Nolte's wife in THE PRINCE OF TIDES. She was replaced by Stockard Channing who gave one of the great stage performances of the year.
millie_dillmount
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/22/04
#52Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 6:57am
Lucie Arnaz in the Wonderful Town tour which also got canceled.
http://www.broadway.com/buzz/93484/lucie-arnaz-to-star-in-wonderful-town-tour/
"We like to snark around here. Sometimes we actually talk about theater...but we try not to let that get in our way." - dramamama611
nasty_khakis
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/15/07
#53Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 10:14am
No, Cloris WAS announced as a replacement immediately after she was on "Dancing with the Stars" but they closed before she could start.
https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Cloris-Leachman-Confirms-YOUNG-FRANKENSTEIN-Offer-on-The-View-20081030#.UwoQHmRdVH0
philly03
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/07
#54Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 10:20am
Frank Wildhorn's "Havana" was announced to play B'way in 2000-2001 (Never did), and then again at the Pasadena Playhouse in the summer of 2010. Playhouse went bankrupt before it could happen.
Who knows if we will ever see it.
LisaLB
Swing Joined: 10/3/13
#55Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 10:31am
Another production that never happened (at least not yet), Tuck Everlasting. I had opening night tix for the out of town try-out in Boston, July 2013. They postponed due to lack of theater availability in NY. I suspect there's more to that story.
#56Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 11:02amThis season or last season, there was a show announced for the Circle in the Square. The name escapes me, but it was a play with music/musical revival. I think it was country-based?
"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle
--Aristotle
The Other One
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/1/08
#57Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 11:34am
Not New York, but Natalie Wood and Vivien Leigh died just before going into rehearsals for an Ahmanson Center revival of ANASTASIA (Natalie) and the West End premiere of A DELICATE BALANCE (Vivien).
#58Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 11:40am
Capn, I think you're thinking of PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES!
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/174876-Pump-Boys-and-Dinettes-Will-Not-Fill-Er-Up-on-Broadway-This-Season
#59Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 11:46amI remember another one. The latest revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs was supposed to run in repertory with Broadway Bound. But, it closed so quickly that Broadway Bound didn't even get to play a preview.
"I don't want the pretty lights to come and get me."-Homecoming 2005
"You can't pray away the gay."-Callie Torres on Grey's Anatomy.
Ignored Users: suestorm, N2N Nate., Owen22, master bates
Borstalboy
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/9/04
#60Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 11:52amThe John Guare re-boot of BRIGADOON.
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
~ Muhammad Ali
SporkGoddess
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/27/05
#61Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 12:07pm
Fat Pig with Dane Cook, Josh Hamilton and Julia Stiles
As someone who loathes Dane Cook, I'm grateful that never came into fruition.
Jimmy, what are you doing here in the middle of the night? It's almost 9 PM!
#62Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 1:58pm
People announced but never played their role due to their part being written out:
Lorna Luft - was to have played the title character's best friend in "Lolita, My Love" circa 1971.
Allyn Ann McLerie - was to have played a Ziegfeld girl in FUNNY GIRL (she's in a rehearsal picture in the wonderful book, "Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand". Much like the film version whereas Ann Francis' character Georgia was highly edited out, it seemed audiences were much more interested in just seeing Barbra. Maybe they can write the character back in to give us a break from Lea Michele if she ever does the revival.
Anita Gillette - written out of THE GAY LIFE.
Ella Logan - At the time it never was clear to me whether she left or was fired out of town from the musical KELLY. Might have been a mutual decision.
Jean Fenn - written out of SAIL AWAY when in previews in Philadelphia, Noel Coward decided on merging Fenn's role with that of Elaine Stritch's part. Critics have suggested that it was Fenn's too polished quality that prevented her from having that star making quality. Noël Coward said of her during rehearsals, "She is cursed with refinement and does everything ‘beautifully. Oh dear, I long for her to pick her nose or fart and before I’m through with her, she’ll do both." I wonder if he kept his word before firing her?
As far as being announced...and then there was Angela Lansbury playing Norma Desmond in the proposed Stephen Sondheim musical version of SUNSET BLVD. I'd once read that Lansbury agreed to do the SWEENEY TODD tour in return for playing Norma. I guess MURDER SHE WROTE most likely put a nix on it. Pity if true.
Finally Bernadette Peters as SUGAR! And what a great Sugar Kane she would have been with costars Robert Morse and Larry Kert. She was announced to play the part in the Los Angeles Music Center's production in the seventies but declined at the last moment. Why? She was offered "Mack and Mabel". Instead audiences got to see Leland Palmer.
#63Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 2:36pm
Demitri, you give me an excuse to post Howard Taubman's famous comment in his review of Kelly for the Times:
"Ella Logan was written out of Kelly before it reached the Broadhurst Theater Saturday night. Congratulations, Miss Logan."
Updated On: 2/23/14 at 02:36 PM
#64Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 2:49pm
Hilary Swank in The Miracle Worker.
Edie Falco in Threepenny Opera. (Replaced by Cyndi Lauper.)
#65Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 3:13pm
Roundabout has had quite a few productions that were announced but that ended up never happening. In addition to the DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS that I already mentioned, I can think of:
FOOL FOR LOVE, directed by Ed Harris
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, directed by Alex Timbers
The infamous LIPS TOGETHER TEETH APART production with Megan Mullally
MISS JULIE with Natasha Richardson and Philip Seymour Hoffman (wow--amazing to think of now that they're both gone)
A planned production of OUR TOWN that was cancelled when Paul Newman's production was brought to Broadway
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
AEA AGMA SM
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/13/09
#66Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 4:26pm
"I'd once read that Lansbury agreed to do the SWEENEY TODD tour in return for playing Norma. I guess MURDER SHE WROTE most likely put a nix on it. Pity if true."
I had always heard that Sondheim scrapped the idea when he began to work on it and realized that he couldn't find a way to make the subject matter sing, so to speak.
#67Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 5:04pmThanks NoName3 for the great Taubman quote. Reflecting back on KELLY triggered off a recollection of another flop show from the latter part of that year, "Drat! The Cat!" that fits right in with this thread. It had been officially announced that sex kittenish Joey Heatherton would be gracing the stage as The Cat. Going into rehearsals Heatherton nixed the producers' decision to cast Streisand's then husband, Elliot Gould, in the show. Heatherton wanted the right to choose her leading man and it wasn't going to be Gould. I always wondered if Streisand's having put money in the show colored the final decision but the next thing heard was that the producers no longer wanted to put up with diva Joey's behavior. Out was Heatherton and in was nineteen year old Lesley Ann Warren as the new cat burglar.
nasty_khakis
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/15/07
#68Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 5:18pmSondheim spoke to Billy Wilder at a party who said "It's not a musical, it's an opera. It's about a fallen queen, after all." which caused Sondheim to rethink the whole project.
The Other One
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/1/08
#69Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 7:07pmLauren Ambrose and Bobby Cannavale in FUNNY GIRL.
gcal
Leading Actor Joined: 10/19/04
#70Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 7:44pmWasn't there talk of the Roundabout production of Pajama Game reopening for a commercial run?
theatreguy
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/31/03
#71Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/23/14 at 8:01pm
Yes, Jeffery Richards (who produced Pajama Game with Roundabout) was going to re-open it as a commercial production in the fall of 2006. They ran in to problems when a suitable theater wasn't available and they reportedly had trouble finding a replacement for Harry Connick, Jr. The announced tour also never happened.
http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/07-2006/pajama-game-revival-will-not-reopen-on-broadway-to_8604.html
#72Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/24/14 at 2:47pmWasn't Judy Kuhn announced to take over the lead in WOMAN IN WHITE? I'm pretty sure it closed before she came in.
My Music Classroom Giving Page: https://www.donorschoose.org/MrHMusicRoom
#73Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/24/14 at 10:16pm
America Ferrara was supposed to come to Broadway in The Miss Firecracker Contest after making her West End debut in Chicago (that part did happen). Amber Tamblyn was also attached to a production of that show last spring that never happened.
"Hey little girls, look at all the men in shiny shirts and no wives!" - Jackie Hoffman, Xanadu, 19 Feb 2008
#74Announced But Never Played
Posted: 2/25/14 at 1:26pm
bob3 wrote, "I cannot remember his name but there was a well known opera tenor who was cast in the role of Eric but he was replaced in rehearsals by Edmund Lyndeck (the original Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd)."
It was bass-baritone Giorgio Tozzi who was replaced by Edmund Lyndeck during rehearsals of A Doll's Life.
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